One of the biggest challenges facing Cleveland comes in building the networks needed to build wealth in our inner city neighborhoods.

The inner city is an important economic development frontier, and new models of development show promise. Some years ago, Michael Porter established the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City to apply cluster approaches to these markets. Learn more

Cities are developing new innovations to buiding inner city wealth.

For example, the mayor of Milwaukee is launching an important experiment in urban economic innovation. Meeting with lawyers and financial professionals, he has devised a program that would use a wide range of inner-city assets, including vacant land, to provide collateral for promising entrepreneurs.

The loan fund is targeted at people with strong management backgrounds and credit histories. These people do not, however, have the assets to support larger scale financing to expand their businesses.

This approach is promising, because inner-city economies are characterized with very successful, but isolated businesspeople who operate on the edge of markets. This program will assist them in getting into the more mainstream banking relationships. Read more.